We showed up at the IHOP after church expecting nothing different from any other visit to IHOP. We arrived a little later than normal so we had to wait to be seated. I went to the hostess station and she asked how many. I said two. Then she asked my name and I told her. Then she asked me to spell it. Then she asked how many and I said two again. Later when she called our name, she mispronounced it. She didn’t seem that excited to be at work but still managed to walk way ahead of us as she took us to our booth. Before my wife sat down, she noticed a brown, wet spot in her seat. She said, “I can’t sit here!” I told her to sit on my side. I was going to run to the restroom and someone could wipe down my seat while I was gone. She was ok with that and I flagged down someone and asked them to clean my seat while I went to the restroom.
I entered the restroom and noticed water on the floor before I rounded the corner to the sink area. It wasn’t so much water that it was in puddles but just a lot of spots. It looked like kids had been playing at the sink and got water everywhere. There was an employee at the sink washing his hands. Based on the way he was dressed he looked more like part of the kitchen staff that a waiter. Next to the sink area was a urinal, a regular stall and a handicapped stall. I noticed that there were two signs on the urinal indicating that it was not working. Both signs appeared to have been made from a cardboard box that was ripped apart. The smaller sign was taped above the urinal. The letters were written with a bright neon green marker. The larger sign had letters written with what appeared to be the same marker, was about the same size as the urinal and was just sitting inside of it. Junior Samples’ BR-549 sign looked more professional than these. I decided to by-pass the regular stall and go back to the handicapped one because I found the regular one to be a little tight from previous experience. When I entered the handicapped stall, I found that it had not been flushed by the previous user. Whoever had used this restroom previously had only urinated but it looked like they had lined the seat with toilet paper. It could have been one of those disposable toilet seat covers, but it had more of the appearance of toilet paper. Whatever it was, it looked wet. I didn’t really care, I just got out. As I was coming out of that stall, the guy from the kitchen staff said, “Don’t go in there!” I was thinking, “Too late!” He said he was going to get someone to clean it up. As I completed my restroom activities, I was thinking that maybe the IHOP was a bad idea today. If they can’t get the restrooms right, can I expect the kitchen to be any better?
When I returned to our table, my wife said that at least 3 people came by to clean my seat. The first person cleaned it but when they saw it said, “Oh! It’s just coffee!” The way my wife said they reacted gave the impression that it would have been ok to sit on a wet spot. Why would we object to sitting in coffee? In retrospect, maybe they were expecting something much worse. After we ordered, we sat speculating on the virtues of sitting in coffee and reviewed my experiences in the restroom. We noticed that there were straw wrappers and crumbs in the floor in the dining area. Soon, my wife said that one of the waitresses appeared to be quitting. She had been crying, had her purse with her and was heading toward the door. I saw her stop at the cashier’s counter. It appeared that she was talking to someone there. My wife said there was a group of people huddled in the kitchen and they appeared to be talking about whatever was going on. Our table was right next to one of the doors to the kitchen area. My back was to this door but it stayed opened most of the time. I could hear a lot of what was going on and my wife had a front row seat to any drama that played out. Soon my wife said the waitress was back and was talking to the guy she thought was the manager. I overheard him telling her to go home and settle down. Since my back was turned to the kitchen, I had no idea how this lady was reacting. If some bad action was going down in the kitchen and it spilled out into the dining area, I didn’t want to be in the line of fire, literally or figuratively.
The door to the kitchen closed before they brought out our food. Like most meals at IHOP mine came with pancakes. My normal ritual with a meal that includes pancakes is to start preparing the pancakes to eat before I touch any of the other food. I will spread the butter and put syrup on them to let it soak in while I’m eating the rest of my food. They usually have several flavors of syrup at the table already but will bring hot maple syrup from the kitchen. This time, the maple syrup was already a selection at the table and they didn’t offer anything else. I was ok with that until I picked up the syrup dispenser and it was gooey on the outside. Old syrup was dripping off the bottom that you wouldn’t notice until you picked up the bottle because the syrup bottle holder hid the bottoms of the containers. I decided that I didn’t want pancakes that day. I had plenty of other food and don’t always eat my pancakes. Occasionally, the kitchen door would open and my wife would give me updates on the status of the kitchen drama. Early on, the waitress was still talking to the manager. Later, the staff was still bunched together talking about what happened. Our waiter came by and asked if everything was ok. I said it was but my wife said I needed some syrup. He pointed to the containers on the table. My wife lifted the maple syrup container. He quickly saw the problem and said “I’ll get you some syrup.”
When we were done with our meal, I considered going to get the car while she settled the bill. Considering all the things that had gone on that day, I decided that it might be best if we stuck together. If something bad went down, we could go down together.
The following day, I received this notification on my Facebook account: